Hey everyone, welcome to FutureProof - my Tech and Sustainability Digest.
And I’m back. If you were wondering where this newsletter was the last couple of weeks, I took a two week break to recharge the batteries and have a bit of a staycation. So now I’ve returned refreshed and renewed!
And as always this newsletter is dedicated to surfacing and sharing good news stories across tech and sustainability. If good news sounds like something you need, read on. And please share this newsletter with anyone/everyone else you feel could do with a little cheering up!
Now, on with the stories:
Climate
BlackRock Just Lost €14.5B - Climate Inaction Has a Price
The world’s largest asset manager just got booted by one of the Netherlands’ biggest pension funds. PFZW yanked a €14.5 billion mandate, citing climate risk concerns and a need for managers who don’t wobble every time US politics takes a swing at net zero. Ouch.
Big shift: PFZW is redistributing the €14.5B mandate to Robeco, Schroders, UBS and others, integrating sustainability as equal to risk and returns.
Backlash building: Other Dutch giants, like PME, are actively reviewing BlackRock’s mandates over its weak climate stance.
Grassroots push: Nonprofit Fossil Free Netherlands has mobilised savers to demand pension funds cut ties with BlackRock.
Why This Matters: Europe’s pension funds are sending a clear market signal — if you’re not serious about climate alignment, you’re not serious about managing trillions.
Kismet: BlackRock manages around $10 trillion globally, larger than the GDP of every country on Earth except the US and China. When a €14.5B client walks, it’s not just about money; it’s reputational shrapnel. 👉 Full story here
AI News
AI vs. Flu: MIT’s VaxSeer Could Outguess Mother Nature
What if flu vaccines didn’t have to be a coin toss against viral chaos? MIT just built VaxSeer, an AI that crunches decades of flu data to predict which strains will dominate, helping vaccines actually match what’s coming. Imagine taking the guesswork out of public health, and possibly saving millions from unnecessary illness.
Smart predictions: VaxSeer uses protein language models to simulate flu evolution and vaccine match, months ahead of time.
Better than WHO (sometimes): In 9 out of 10 flu seasons, it beat the World Health Organization’s choices for A/H3N2 strains.
Beyond flu: The same approach could one day forecast drug-resistant bacteria or even evolving cancers.
Why This Matters: Predicting viral evolution isn’t just clever, it’s survival. Faster, smarter vaccine picks mean fewer people sick, fewer healthcare systems buckling, and a world less at the mercy of viral roulette.
Kismet: The Spanish flu of 1918 killed more people than World War I. Now, AI is trying to outthink them before they mutate. 👉 Full story here
Apple Wants Siri to Outsmart Google (Yes, Really)
After years of Siri being the punchline at AI’s family reunion, Apple’s finally making a play: a web search engine powered by large language models, rolling out next year. Dubbed World Knowledge Answers, it could turn Siri from a glorified timer-setter into an actual rival to Google, OpenAI, and Perplexity. Colour me intrigued, but also sceptical - Apple’s track record here is… patchy.
Siri 2.0 incoming: A full overhaul will let Siri scan the web, your device, and even summarise results in text, photos, and video.
Google inside Siri: Apple struck a deal to test Google’s Gemini model, after Anthropic priced itself out of contention.
Big business stakes: The Apple-Google search deal nets Apple ~$20B/year, but Eddy Cue admitted Google queries from iPhones are already dropping thanks to AI competitors.
Why This Matters: If Apple nails this, Siri stops being dead weight and becomes an AI portal that challenges the ad revenue lifeline of Google, and maybe even chips at OpenAI’s early mover advantage.
Kismet: Siri debuted in 2011, the same year IBM’s Watson beat humans on Jeopardy! Fast-forward, and Watson got sold for scrap while Siri might finally learn to answer questions properly. 👉 Full story here
Electromobility
China’s Electric Trucks Are Gutting Diesel Demand
Heavy-duty EV trucks in China just crossed a milestone: outselling LNG trucks in June, and now analysts say they’ll slash diesel demand by 153,000 barrels per day. That’s like yanking an oil tanker’s worth of diesel off the market every week. Oil majors? They’re scrambling.
Demand destruction: China’s oil consumption peaked in 2023 at 399M tonnes; gasoline and diesel sales already falling fast.
Trucking revolution: EV heavy trucks are now beating LNG alternatives, overturning assumptions about efficiency.
Oil giants pivoting: Sinopec and PetroChina are racing into battery swap networks; Sinopec even bought into CATL to secure its EV future.
Why This Matters: The electrification of heavy transport isn’t just nibbling at the edges, it’s gutting fossil fuel demand in the world’s largest oil importer, reshaping global energy markets.
Kismet: A single electric heavy truck in China can displace the diesel use of 40 passenger cars. Scale that across thousands of rigs, and suddenly Big Oil’s worst nightmare is wearing a hardhat. 👉 Full story here
Clean Energy
Space Solar Could Power 80% of Europe by 2050
Researchers at King’s College London say space-based solar power (SBSP) could slash Europe’s need for land renewables by a jaw-dropping 80% by mid-century. By bouncing sunlight from orbit back to Earth, it could deliver 24/7 gigawatts, cut system costs 15%, and gut the need for giant battery fleets. Sounds sci-fi, but Japan’s already trialling it.
Grid game-changer: Modelling 33 European countries showed SBSP integration could massively reduce land use and storage needs.
Always-on solar: Orbiting panels dodge clouds, night, and seasonality, the Achilles’ heel of Earth-based renewables.
Not cheap (yet): Costs, orbital congestion, and debris risks are big caveats, real viability hinges on tech scaling by 2050.
Why This Matters: Europe’s energy future might not be wind farms on every horizon, but mirror-like satellites in orbit, delivering clean baseload power without weather headaches.
Kismet: The concept isn’t new, sci-fi author Isaac Asimov wrote about orbital solar power stations in 1941. Now, 80 years later, scientists are modelling them as Europe’s potential backbone. 👉 Full story here
Solar’s One-Time Build Beats Oil’s One-Time Burn
Oil is single-use. Burn it once, it’s gone. Solar panels? You build them once, and they generate clean power for decades. That’s why China’s solar giants - Tongwei, Longi, Jinko, Trina and the rest, will ultimately provide far more energy than the so-called oil “giants.” And unlike oil, this power is distributed, clean, and a foundation for real energy independence.
Perpetual vs. disposable: Oil must be bought, shipped, and burned forever. Solar panels deliver electricity year after year, warranty-backed.
Scale tipping: Factories run by seven Chinese solar firms already rival Big Oil in energy terms, and their panels will keep on giving.
Strategic edge: Distributed solar strengthens national energy security, insulating countries from petro-politics and price shocks.
Why This Matters: The energy empire of the 21st century won’t be built on barrels, but on panels, stable, renewable flows that erode oil’s monopoly and empower nations to stand on their own.
Kismet: The world spends over $2 trillion annually on fossil fuels. Once a solar panel’s up, its sunlight is free, every watt a quiet rebellion against that endless invoice. 👉 Full story here
China Just Built a Wind Turbine the Size of a Skyscraper
Move over Denmark, China’s Dongfang Electric has dropped a monster: a 26 MW offshore turbine, the most powerful in the world. With blades longer than three football fields and a hub taller than the Washington Monument, this single machine can power 55,000 homes a year. Coal? Not invited.
Colossal capacity: 26 MW prototype with a 310 m rotor and 185 m hub height, the biggest ever built.
One turbine, many homes: Generates 100 GWh annually, enough for 55,000 households, displacing 30,000 tonnes of coal.
Built for extremes: Wind resistant up to Beaufort 17 - hurricane-force 200 km/h gusts.
Why This Matters: Each of these turbines is a coal plant killer in disguise, delivering clean baseload-scale power from a single spinning giant.
Kismet: The Eiffel Tower is 300 metres tall. Dongfang’s blades sweep a wider circle than Paris’s icon is tall, and they do it while cutting emissions, not just looking pretty. 👉 Full story here
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Latest Publications
Big Tech’s Climate Promises Are Looking Pretty Flimsy
Net zero slogans everywhere, but the reality? Smoke, mirrors, and way too many offsets. In my latest blog post, I dig into the NewClimate Institute’s Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2025 and my chat with Tom Day on Climate Confident, and the verdict is brutal: 55 companies assessed, not one scored “high integrity.” Big Tech has the cash, brains, and tools to lead, but it’s still enabling fossil fuel firms with AI and enterprise software. That’s not leadership, that’s doublethink.
Integrity vacuum: Not a single company hit “high integrity”; most languished in “low” or “very low.”
Offsets ≠ solutions: Corporates are leaning on credits instead of cutting emissions at the source.
Accountability gap: Tech giants sell clean-energy PR while helping oil firms pump hydrocarbons faster.
Why This Matters: Greenwashing is no longer just reputational risk - with over 3,000 climate litigation cases active, it’s legal risk.
Kismet: The International Court of Justice recently ruled states must prevent climate harm. Corporate execs should take note - the same legal spotlight is drifting their way. 👉 Read the full post here
PSA: My Podcasts Just Got a Sustainability Upgrade
Quick heads-up: I’ve changed how Climate Confident and Sustainable Supply Chain work. The latest 30 days stay free, but access to the archives - nearly 700 episodes packed with climate + supply chain gold, is now €5/month.
Why? Because sustainability isn’t a side hustle anymore, it’s a business imperative. And these archives aren’t “old shows”, they’re a living library on everything from EU compliance to shipping decarbonisation to AI-powered emissions tracking.
👉 Subscribe here:
Why This Matters: If your board, investors, or customers are asking tough questions about climate or supply chain resilience, the answers are likely already in these archives.
Kismet: The full back catalogue now rivals The Simpsons for sheer episode count, except instead of yellow cartoons, you get actual tools to future-proof your business.
Coming Soon to the podcasts
In the next episodes I will be talking to renowned environmentalist Jonathon Porritt about his latest book, and to Sam Jenks, CRO of Kodiak Hub
Don’t forget to follow the podcasts in your podcast app of choice to ensure you don’t miss any episodes.
Featured Chart
There’s exponential growth, and then there’s solar!!!
If anyone complains to you about the amount of land used by renewables, ask them if they play golf!!!
But, what about the emissions required to make solar panels? Or wind turbines? Negligible compared to other sources.
This one made me laugh!
Misc stuff
LOL!
Fans of MC Escher’s art will appreciate this one.
While, fans of the 1970’s movie Grease should appreciate this one
Engage
If you made it this far, very well done! If you liked this newsletter, or learned something new, feel free to share this newsletter with family and friends. Encourage folks to sign up for it.
Finally, since being impacted by the tech layoffs, I'm currently in the market for a new role. If you know someone who could benefit from my tech savvy, sustainability, and strong social media expertise, I'd be really grateful for a referral.
If you have any comments or suggestions for how I can improve this newsletter, don’t hesitate to let me know. Thanks.
*** Be aware that any typos you find in this newsletter are tests to see who is paying attention! ***
And Finally
This one is a bit US-centric, given I suspect most millennials from countries other than America can drive stick shifts!
